mooge
Well-known
Fig 1.
1. Symptom:
Counter 'clicks' when film is wound, or doesn't move at all.
2. Diagnosis:
Counter clutch not engaging fully (or at all)
3. Solution:
Shim clutch to proper engagement
Fig 2.
Here's what I'm talking about:
- gear A is connected to a roller that rotates as the film moves.
- gear B meshes with A.
- C is the clutch on the shaft of gear B that meshes when the back is closed (gear B slides along its shaft). The clutch's teeth are sawtooth shaped. When film is being wound and the clutch is engaged, the clutch transmits rotation of gear B to the toothed belt, which moves the counter ribbon. When the back is opened, the clutch disengages and the counter ribbon is rewound to the starting position.
My problem was that the clutch didn't fully engage when the back was closed - the clutch plates weren't pressed fully together. So I took a brass C clip and put it between one of the clutch halves and the wall, so that the clutch half stuck out more. Then I bent the C clip into a ring so that it wouldn't fall off.
Fig 3.
Before I could get there though, I had to take the cover off. The trick here is that the knob prevents the cover from coming off - and the knob can't be pulled off easily.
Sometimes manufacturers hide screws under stickers - and this was the case here. But trick number two is that the sticker on top of the knob can be taken off to reveal a nut that can be removed, but this doesn't help. This reveals a plate with a very tight nut on it, and the plate can't be removed.
So remove the sticker on the tab of the knob, to reveal a screw that holds the tab on, and that's it. The cover can be removed now. super sneaky.
Notes on the film gates:
Don't open the panel near the film gates if you don't have to. I did, and some light sealing string fell out. And when I tried to get that back in, the gate that says 'DANGER - CLOSE' fell out. And then I had to muck around for three hours trying to get it back in - the gate actuating mechanism falls out of synchronization somehow sometimes if you do something. I really don't understand how it works, and I couldn't figure out how to take the cover off on that side (it's probably better that I couldn't). To get the gate mechanism working again, I had to set the format to 4.5 and do something like wind the knob forwards or backwards until the mechanism was synchronized (at the gate closed position, the two pins that lock the back into the camera are IN and not OUT) and then from there wind the gate opening knob slightly backwards (past fully closed) then insert the gate that says 'DANGER - CLOSE' and turn the knob to the fully closed position and put the other gate in. The way to check if it's the right position is if the 'DANGER - CLOSE' gate is just visible in the opening for the film when the gates are open when the format is set to 12. Yeah, it's complicated.
Also, I'm not sure if the tension on the nut on the silver plate on the gate opening knob (see fig 3) has to do with synchronizing the mechanism or not. I think it might, but I don't really remember.
Additional notes:
- This back has two toothed belts - one to run the counter, and another to open the gates. I'd imagine toothed belts on camera components aren't common!
- I'm pretty sure the Vario is from the 90s, and it shows in the construction - lots of plastic. Not to say that it's not solid and incredibly heavy, because it is.
cheers.
